ME3  Dream within a dream
by birthofthecool
Summary: Basically an attempt at a satisfying ending to ME3, staying in canon as much possible. ME3 Ending spoilers. Commander Rain Shepard has just killed all synthetic live, she is dying or might die. What happens now?   Femshep/Liara. Continues Stars may Fade
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's note:**_

_**I started this story as a way to vent my frustration about the ending of Mass Effect 3.**_

_**Be warned that this will contain Spoilers for ME3 and it's so called ending!**_

_**And one advice, if you haven't reached it so far, don't ! Just stop playing and hope that Bioware will see the light and deliver the satisfying multiple endings which are taking all our decisions into account, that we were promised. 90 % of the people who played through don't like the ending, most hate it. Many feel totally crushed because of it.**_

_**The usual reaction is WTF! Not because it is so surprising or shocking, no because it sucks so hard.**_

_**The funny thing is, while writing the story I actually started to kind of understand Bioware's intention behind it (at least I hope that was their intention) and since then I manage to live with it a little better.**_

_**It still is a terrible flawed ending, it still doesn't give us enough information and it still feels totally OOC for most of the Shepard's I've played and read about. I try to get behind what happened to Shepard to explain her acceptance of "you know whose" explanation in this story and I actually think it sort of makes sense. Although it is a very bleak view, maybe that is really what BW wanted to do.**_

_**What it doesn't really explain is the nonsensical flight of the Normandy in the end, but I think nothing will ever make sense of this scene.**_

_**And frankly 3 short video clips, that practically only differ in the colour of the energy impulse are a goddamn lazy way to end a story of this epic format.**_

_**Let's hope that we'll get the ending patched and the now available ending, will be only one of many, if not I'll try to read it like it happens in this story and maybe I can manage to continue to enjoy ME3 and the two earlier games again.**_

As usual speech and thoughts are indicated by "" and thoughts additionally are written in _cursive._

Certain words may be written **bold**, that usually means that a strong emphasis is put on them.

Disclaimers: No, I do not own Mass Effect, Shepard or any other character appearing in the game, but I if I did, I'd have delivered a better ending. Hell, a monkey typing random characters on a keyboard probably could have written a more fitting ending. But. I. Digress.

The people in this story are on the edge, they don't have the time or power to be polite anymore.

**And readers, please review. I can't write it often enough. Reviews are essential for my motivation, since I get so few reviews, it's awfully hard to keep writing.**

****For today's story I'm borrowing a title by old Edgar Allan, but it's fitting. And there's really lots of swearing and cursing in this.****

****This story is a continuation of my ME2 set story "Stars may fade" and the lemon chapter of that story. I'll probably add at least one more Story to that cycle, which will also be set in ME3, just after the Cerberus attack on the Citadel.  
><strong>**

* * *

><p><strong>X<strong>

**X  
><strong>

**A dream within a dream:**

**X  
><strong>

**Chapter One**

**X  
><strong>

The elegant Form of the Normandy SR 2 rode in front of the magnificent shockwave.

In the cockpit, Joker's fingers were swirling hectically over the glowing controls. The pilot's face was a mask of shock and desperation.

No matter how fast the Normandy was, or how skilled it's pilot, there was no way the ship could escape the torrent of raging energy.

Strangely the colour of the shockwave changed almost rhythmically from blue to red and then green.

Seconds ticked by and soon the Normandy was no longer riding before the wave, but was riding the wave itself, then was engulfed by the wave.

Inside, Joker's movements were getting more frantically, but it was clear that the pilot could not win this battle.

At last the Normandy began to give in to the forces pressing in on her. She lost one of her pylons and steered of course, starting to go into a spin.

A small red dot fell down through a night time sky.

Full green leaves, trees, a lush green jungle. A world full of live. Plant life that is.

The wreck of the Normandy comes into view, buried in the jungle.

The once proud ship is badly hammered, gaping holes in its hull, one of them exposing the cockpit. Destroyed parts of the plating and the hull are still smouldering.

The air lock comes into line of sight, it is undamaged. It slowly opens, hinting at a manual opening as it glides to the side. A slightly, shell-shocked Joker emerges, moving as careful and awkward as ever.

Slowly he steps away from his ship and takes in the astonishing view of the beautiful landscape around him. What a huge difference between the smoking ruins of once proud planets the Normandy crew had seen the last weeks.

Joker stumbles forward, immersing himself into the scenery.

Back in the Airlock Liara appears, the Asari's white armour-coat combination, gleaming as if it just came from dry-cleaning and maintenance, cautiously leaving the safety of the hull and stepping down to Joker. Her eyes are wandering around, taking in their surroundings. Maybe the scientist has grown so used to combat by now, that she automatically searches for enemies or defensive positions.

She reaches Joker, who still seems stymied by the world full of life around them, after seeing nothing but death for such a long time.

They both scan the area around the ship with their eyes, look at each other, start to take in the idyllic landscape. They seem content and at peace now. Joker even smiles.

From behind them, Javik walks up to them, the grim Prothean survivor appears to be as relaxed as never.

The three are enjoying the wonderful sight before them, the blue sky, the peace, while their ship burns beside them.

X

* * *

><p>X<p>

"_No, this is wrong. Liara… Liara is on earth. Javik is on earth._

_Why would they…? How… How can Joker have taken the Normandy through the Portal, before the energy started to spread?_

_Why… how… How can they be on board? When did Liara find the time to change her armour, she was wearing the red and black one. When we… When we… Why can't I remember what happened?_

_Why does everything hurt so much?_

_Liara. Liara. Where are you? You wouldn't leave me here. Joker wouldn't leave me here. Where am I, Liara? And why aren't you here with me._

_We promised. We…_

_This is not right. This can't be right. They can't do this to me. To her, to us. Garrus. Where's Garrus? Ash? Wrex? Tali. Where's Tali? _

_Are they all dead? Anderson is dead. How do I know this? Did I see him die? Am I dead then? Is that why Liara isn't with me? But then, then… shouldn't the others be here then?_

_Why am I alone in here? And where is here? Is this heaven or hell? _

_I ought to smack Ash over the head with my Phalanx, for believing in such a stupid place._

_Ha. Ha. Hehehehe. That's funny. I just knew she was wrong. There is no god, no heaven. No god would have allowed these atrocities to happen._

_No god would have created the catalyst. Unless… Unless he's god. Maybe he's god. That would explain why one energy pulse can take out every little bit of synthetic life, but leave the organics untouched. Heh. Space Magic. That's what it is._

_Oh stars, is the pain becoming even stronger?_

_Is this how I will spend eternity? Drifting here in the dark, all alone? Tortured by seeing visions of my surviving friends living on without me? _

_It's what I deserve for giving in. They were all wrong. Hackett. Anderson._

_In the end I broke. In the end I let them all down._

_Oh EDI, Legion, I'm sorry, so sorry. I couldn't see any other way. It was two synthetic species against billions and billions of organics._

_I couldn't lead the reapers. They are everything I stand against._

_Except that in the end I didn't stand. I wiggled on the floor and exposed my belly before this bastard._

_I should have… I should have found a way._

_Sorry for letting you die, Edi. Sorry I couldn't save the Geth, Legion._

_I would cry, if I still had a body._

_Sorry Joker, I couldn't find the strength to tell you how your sister died, but I didn't give her the weapon. I wanted her to continue her miserable life. Wanted her to feel the pain, the horror about what she did each day._

_Sorry for killing EDI, Joker._

_I wish I could cry._

_Why can't the pain stop?_

_._

_._

_._

_I wish Liara was here. It might be wrong to wish her dead, but I don't want to… no, I__** can't**__ go on without her._

_That's probably part of my punishment as well. First give her to me and then take her away, again and again._

_That asshole really must be god. He sure is a bad winner. Wasn't destroying everything I stood for enough?_

_All my life… all my life I tried to do the right thing. Save everybody I could, never accept defeat. Always helping, always protecting._

_Always willing to accept a former enemy as an ally if he was willing to change his ways._

_I was a regular boy scout (or is that wilderness girl? I think as figure of speech, boy scout should really be gender neutral) and proud of it. And then… and then…_

_I'm such a complete failure. And I thought I did well up until the end._

_This pain is killing me. Thank the stars, that I'm already dead_

_._

_._

_.  
><em>

…_but if I'm already dead, then why do I feel as if every centimetre of my being screams in pain?_

_So maybe…. Maybe I'm not dead, but only dreaming?"_

_X  
><em>

* * *

><p>X<p>

"_What an incredible stupid and impossible dream. As if Joker would have run from the battlefield. As if Liara would have left earth without knowing what happened to me. "_

Shepard drew a deep breath and was hit by a wave of pain that was so intense that she started to scream. Or she would have, if screaming had been on her list of options.

But it wasn't. All she could manage was a kind of gargling, suffocating whimper, out of her parchment dry throat.

That move brought on the pain again.

Shepard concentrated on lying still like a log and slowly, carefully opened her dark eyes.

And instantly wished she hadn't.

The light stung her left eye like a laser and she shut her eyes again in an instant. But not before she shuffled a little bit around, which resulted in stabs of pain in her head and chest that seriously made her want to be dead instead.

She concentrated again, on lying as still as possible, breath as soft as possible and definitely, yes definitely not opening her eyes in the foreseeable future.

**"_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"_**

Was the only useful thought her brain could muster.

X

"_Damn it, Rain! You stupid bitch! Get your act together."_

How come her inner voice sounded like a mixture of Hackett, Anderson, her mother's official officer voice and her first drill sergeant?

"_What is your situation? Where are you? Why are you even alive?"_

"_Why wouldn't I be alive?"_

"_You idiot! Do you remember that asinine AI? The explosion? That alone should have been enough to kill you, even if half of your body wasn't made up of reaper tech, which should have been destroyed by the impulse."_

"_Fine, fine! I remember. I wish I would know why I'm using such a tone with me?"_

"_I can tell you that, you utterly useless cow. You caved in. You accepted what that bastard told you at face value. You, you stupid, despicable excuse for a marine killed the Geth and EDI, without even thinking of fighting, without even once asking yourself, if what that damnable child told you was true."_

A moment passed, gears and wheels in Shepard's memory started

That made sense. Of course she'd be mad with herself over this. She'd probably hate herself for this.

A moment of clarity swept by.

"_Am I going insane here?"_

"_More important is, where is here?"_

"_Naturally, it should be the citadel."_

"_Naturally it should be the citadel."_

"_Stop parroting me."  
>"Stop parroting me."<em>

"_Stop it! I'm sick of this multiple persona act already."_

"_Stop it! I'm sick of this multiple persona act already."_

"_I told you to stop doing this. I really hate you!"_

"_I told you to stop doing this. I really hate you!"_

"_I hate you!"_

"_I hate you!"_

"_No! I hate you!"_

"_No! I hate you!"_

"_I hate you, I hate you Rain Shepard, you disgusting, cowardly piece of shit! I HATE YOU! __**I HATE YOU! I! HATE! YOU!"**_

"I hate you! I… ahhhh. Oww. Oww."

X

The pain, screaming with all she had left, generated, seemed at least to have cleared her head a bit.

This exchange within her mind had been so strange. It was almost frightening, hell no it definitely was frightening.

While she tried to calm herself, using some of the Asari meditation techniques Samara and Liara had taught her, something buried under the pain and confusion flagged on her mental monitor.

When she had opened her eyes, only her left eye had been painfully blinded by the light.

Concentrating on the memory showed her only a dark red mist, with some rough black shapes in her right eyes' vision.

Slowly she tried opening her right eye again. It wouldn't open fully and she really couldn't see much besides a few darker shapes in the darkness. She closed her right eye and opened the left a fraction of a millimetre.

Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as before. She could make out some shapes and the light didn't feel as glaring as before.

Over the course of a few minutes, as far as Shepard could tell the passing of time, she slowly accustomed her eye to the light again.

When her field of vision cleared, she slowly studied her surroundings.

She was lying on a vertically aligned piece of a floor or wall, as far as she could tell.

She was definitely in a ruin of some kind, but where?

The rubble and what was left of walls and floors looked like some sort of ferro-concrete.

Shepard tried to remember if she had ever seen a place on the citadel that had been built of this material, but it was a futile effort. With the size of the gigantic station, she doubted anybody had seen all of it.

She sighed in frustration and let her head slowly sink back.

The Spectre searched for an opening to the sky and after a while she found one and her suspicion proved correct.

This had to be earth.

_"But how? How did I get here? And even more importantly why am I still alive?"_

_X  
><em>

* * *

><p>X<p>

She remembered standing there, on the walkway, looking back at the child and its smug expression. Surrounded by the vastness of space, that was only obscured by a few metallic constructions and the three walkways with the gleaming machinery at each ones end.

The beautiful flowers of exploding ships and fighters illuminating the stars like fireworks at human holidays was a remarkable background to what was happening.

Never, never before had she felt this defeated, this powerless. She wasn't surprised as she felt the tears rolling down her burned, bruised cheeks. She didn't even feel pain in her heart, no, she just felt numb. Numb and deadly tired. Was it ever gonna end?

"_The choices. Some choices those are."_

Controlling the reapers?

Leaving her battered, beaten body behind didn't seem that bad, but to lead the reapers, to be in contact with minds like Sovereign and Harbinger for the rest of her existence?

"_And what if I die? What's to keep them from returning? _

_How long will I be able to keep my mind sane and in control like that,_

_with their filthy, cold, alien minds touching me everywhere, with no place for myself?"_

Shepard shuttered in disgust. She might have chosen to endure it, if she could have been sure that the reapers would never return to the galaxy.

The marine turned back to the AI's representation again.

"What if… what If I die? Will the reapers return to attack organic life again? Can… can I even die in this form?"

No reply, he just stood there and watched her.

She repeated her questions, no reaction. It was as if some higher power had chosen that he couldn't give any more answers, that he couldn't explain anything more.

Shepard wished for anger, wished for the controlled fury over the injustice, the fury that had always made it possible to act before.

Something to enable her to fight, to let her think at last.

Thinking was so hard. To follow a line of thought, to concentrate, was like walking through chest high snow.

There was no reservoir of energy left, she felt hollow inside.

Like a scarecrow which had lost her filling.

She was done for, spend. She'd ridden herself so hard to reach her goal, making choices she had never thought possible in the past.

The horrors, the horrors she had seen. Sanctuary, Thessia, Palaven, Earth.

"_And Liara is dead. Has to be dead. She was running by my side when… she was… she…"_

A small suppressed moan escaped her and for a moment she couldn't see anything anymore as the tears began to fall in earnest.

"My hime. My little flower. My Liara. Gone…"

She fell to her knees, somehow still keeping her grip on her pistol.

Before her inner eyes, her secret place appeared.

**The little house on some small colony, a green world either a human or an Asari.**

**A house.**

**A home for her family.**

**For her life partner and their children.**

**The secret place grew dark, caught in shadows, swallowed by the darkness.**

**It was gone. Just like her life would soon be gone.**

Shepard smiled. It was no happy smile. The pain was back and she couldn't find the reason why she had wanted to feel it again in the first place.

"_No rest for the wicked, eh? This life is for others, others who don't have that much blood on their hands."_

_X  
><em>

Forcing herself to stand up, she turned to face the two remaining choices, to study them.

No, leading the reapers was no option. To continue living in any form was no option. Not anymore

With a mind that seemed to slowly crawl along, instead of sending impulses at the speed of light, she thought about the options that were left to her.

At first glance Synthesis seemed like the best choice. No one had to die, well except for her.

No more deaths on her conscience.

Then as if the fog lifted for a moment, her friends faces formed before her, each of them part of a greater whole, each of them unique.

Each of them with their own strengths and weaknesses, everyone a miniature cosmos of life and mind.

What would be left of what made each species special? What would happen to souls, spirits, minds that were changed in this way?

Would there even be individuals anymore, or would it be like a great hive mind, like the Geth had been before Legion's sacrifice?

All the faces disappeared, with only two remaining, EDI and Legion. The AI and the Geth.

They would all die if she chose to annihilate the reapers.

Millions of minds, lives, gone; snuffed out without a second thought.

More deaths on her conscience.

Again she turned back to the Catalyst.

"I need to know more about Synthesis. You hear me?"

No reaction, she stumbled back towards it.

"I can't make this decision, if I don't know what happens to them.

I can't… Hey you, I'm taking to you. Give me a sodding answer, you prick!"

The dead kid's face just stared back at her, with that smug expression on it.

Without thinking Shepard's arm raised the gun and she started shooting.

Even as wounded and exhausted as she was, each shot hit true. Straight between the eyes.

What a pity, that you couldn't shoot a hologram.

For one moment the Spectre felt the urge to aim the gun at her own temple.

That would be the easy way out, but then the fleets would be overwhelmed by the reapers and everyone would die.

Be harvested, harvested! That son of a bitch.

Again Shepard tried to fire herself up; again there was nothing left to re-kindle that flame.

Everything, everybody synthesizing into something new, the core of every living being changing, organic or synthetic, and using her being as a sort of matrix to accomplish that.

The marine didn't feel any different, since she was reborn? Rebuilt? by Cerberus. Liara said she was herself, but was her partner really an objective source?

Thinking of the Asari was like someone stabbing Shepard's heart.

For a moment she grew weak in the knees.

"_I have no way of knowing and I can't risk destroying everything that's unique, can't risk destroying individuals. We are what we are. We can strive to change ourselves, but forcing it on us is wrong._

_I can't… I can't save one race, while risking all of them. I wouldn't do it for humanity, I can't do it for the Geth_."

Somewhere deep within Shepard something screamed. Screamed this wasn't the way.

**That there had to be another way, a better way to end this war.**

"Sorry, I can't… I can't think straight. I can't fight anymore. I… I."

The voice was gone and was replaced by a strange calmness.

X

Her eyes closed. EDI and Legion were there.

Edi smiling, telling jokes, struggling with her feelings for Joker.

Finding her own priorities in life.

Finding a cause to fight outside what was programmed into her.

Even finding friendship and love.

X

Legion, with his pieces of Shepard''s old armour, struggling to explain his reasons for using it.

Legion achieving sentient status as an individual.

His gift, his sacrifice for his people.

The Geth Primes surrounding Shepard's squad, after Legion had freed them. Facing almost certain death, only to find the Primes wanted to help.

The hidden history of the morning wars.

Shepard's eyes opened, they were gone.

X

A single tear rolled down the Spectre's face.

She made her first step towards the left walkway. Toward the big generator like machine, looming at its end.

She raised the gun.

She started to fire, insecure at first, but then her body straightened itself.

With her head held high and without hesitation, the Spectre continued walking to her target, each shot hitting with deadly precision.

Faces flashed before her eyes again.

Joker, Anderson, Liara, Garrus, Tali. Liara. Liara.

As the explosion engulfed her, Rain Shepard whispered.

"Goodbye."

X

* * *

><p>X<p>

And then? The Spectre remembered the heat of the explosion, raising her arms before her face. She remembered flying, falling.

Single moments, images, with no timeline, no coherence.

A bright white light. And then falling again.

Then nothing.

Rain sighed. It was a sound devoid of all hope.

She remembered everything now, everything but how she had landed here back on earth. She still didn't know for certain where she was, but if the white light was the transport beam; it just might be possible it had transported her back to earth, back to London.

"I killed them. I killed them all. I killed a whole species, just after I saved them. Millions of Geth platforms and ships. And I killed my friend.

I killed EDI. I KILLED EDI."

Shepard made a choking sound.

The burden that had already been too big for one woman to carry had just been multiplied by the killing of a friend and a whole species.

There was a word for what she had done. **Genocide.**

No rationalization could ever free her from this guilt. It was too big.

If she still had her gun, she would have used it now, without needing another moment to think about it.

A few tears came, not many. There probably wasn't enough liquid left in Shepard to shed tears. But she cried tearless. Her body shaking and trembling, both from pain and from the sobs that violently jerked through her.

Then came the realization that Garrus had to be dead as well, that it was possible that each and every one of her friends who had fought on earth could be dead.

If you considered how high the Hammer death rate had been, chances were high, that really all of them were gone.

The crying turned into uncontrollable wailing. The spectre screamed her pain at the world as loud as her weakened body could manage.

Guttural, animalistic wails from a soul torn apart by loss and guilt.

When she finally was too weak, she slipped into unconsciousness.

X

* * *

><p>X<p>

Shepard had no idea what amount of time had passed, but it felt like she had cried an eternity.

Pain raked her body and it surprised the Spectre, because thinking of the wounds she had sustained, she had rather thought she would be too weak to still feel the pain.

"_I should have bled to death a long time ago."_

She thought, remembering how much blood she had been losing when Anderson died.

She turned her eyes to the stars above her.

"If anybody is up there, god, devil or ancient, merciless AI. If you can hear me, I'm begging you let me die. Let me finally rest and find some peace.

There's nothing left of me. It's gone, used up. Everyone I cared for must be dead. I killed a whole people. I caused the death of friends, I even killed one myself. How much more do you need? How much more do I have to give, before it's finally over?"

Of course there was no answer. Shepard laughed; a short, barking sound.

**"I've always got to do everything by myself."**

She raised her upper body on her arms, as high as she could manage, which wasn't much and for the first time since waking up she tried to assess the state she was in.

Even though the Spectre seriously had no will to live left at this point, what she knew, after a short check, was enough to make her moan.

Both legs were a broken mess, definitely spall fractures and a lot of them, she could see larger and smaller pieces of white bone in more than one place . Parts of her remaining armour were burned into the skin of her legs, there were pieces of raw flesh hanging out, were the skin had broken, because of the burns.

Her arms were only slightly better off, her left shoulder was either broken or dislocated, but her right arm was still usable, even though it was also covered in burns and dark blood.

Several of her ribs were broken, but miraculously nothing seemed to have hurt her lungs. She couldn't find out, what was wrong with her right eye, apart from being swollen almost shut and covered in dried blood from cuts on her brow and head. There had to be several burns on her face, considering how tight the skin stretched, but without a mirror she couldn't really tell how bad it was. It felt really bad.

To her surprise, the wound in her left side almost didn't bleed anymore. Even probing with one finger, produced only pain, but not more blood.

"Damn. At least bleeding out, would take care of the pain at some time."

She really didn't want to die from thirst, but apart from crawling to a wall and trying to bash her head in, she didn't have many options

"_I wish that stupid dream was true. Even if it were just this three, I wish they had survived._

_If at least Liara had survived, then I would have at least something._

_I wish I just died from the explosion, but that would probably be too easy."_

She raised her usable eye to the stars again.

"Right, you old bastard?"

Part of her was disgusted by how defeated she was, to simply want to die, but the same part was also disgusted that she had gone through with what the Catalyst had offered her, instead of fighting for another solution.

The terrible thing was, that now that her mind wasn't as fogged over from being tired and exhausted, she actually had at least some ideas what she could have done.

And she rattled her brain, how she could not even have thought of them?

She could have tried to convince the Catalyst to take his Reapers away, of course it didn't have a big chance of success, but that had become order of business for her.

"_I've united every species in Citadel space without force, I could have at least tried to make the AI see that its conclusion and motivation was faulty. "_

The other option would have bigger chances of success, if she'd found a working Omni tool, but she could at least have tried to change the destructive impulse so that it only affected reapers and their tech and not derivative tech like those used in EDI, the Geth and herself,

How could you even produce an energy impulse that affected everything Reaper connected, but left the rest of the tech intact?

How could there be an impulse that destroyed the portals, but not the Mass Effect weapons?

"And she herself had shown, that blowing up a mass effect portal led to an explosion in a magnitude to threaten life in whole sun systems.

"_Science Magic_."

She thought again.

"_That's what it is, pure science magic."_

There was the theory that technology that surpassed the one you knew by far, would appear just like magic, because you didn't understand the laws governing it.

Yet it was still tech and the laws had to be there, even without grasping them, she could have searched for a way to use them to solve the problem.

"_What if I had searched for a way to contact the fleet again and told Hackett to give the order to the Geth and EDI to go offline. Even if the Impulse changed something in them, with their processors and memories inert, it might not have affected them or we could have searched for a way to fix it before we activated them again."_

All those possibilities; true, the chances of success might not have been very good, but it certainly was better than just killing them all.

Thinking about that of course led to Shepard condemning herself even more and for a while she accepted the pain she still felt, as part of punishment she deserved.

Since she was no masochist, that changed after some time had passed.

X

Night had gone and come and gone again and Shepard was quite sure that her ordeal would soon be over.

She caught herself drifting away into sleep or unconsciousness all the time.

She had fever dreams which made her previous nightmares seem harmless.

In them, she was still hunting the kid through a dark, cold wood, but the kid was the catalyst now and definitely malicious. Shepard had to catch him, before he reached his goal, but whenever she came near him, he vanished and reappeared far away from her.

She had no weapons to stop him and time was running out.

Instead of shapeless black wraith, the spectators had turned into her dead friends. Dead friends who also wore their grizzly wounds or were half turned into reaper creatures.

None of them spoke, they just looked at her with sad eyes and one question on all their faces.

Why did you fail us?

She had suspected that those dark shadows were her dead, that it were voices she had known, which were gone now. Now she knew for sure.

Kaidan, Mordin, Thane, Kelly Chambers, Legion and Anderson were always there, the others changed.

Legion held two handfuls of little metallic dolls to its chest, which included all mobile Geth platforms and EDI.

Unexplainable terror filled Shepard whenever his eyes fell on them and the way Legion silently presented them to her, as if **he**was trying to hand them into her care.

For some reason Liara never was part of the dreams and for that the Spectre was thankful.

Due to the fever and the weakness, she didn't feel the pain as strong anymore.

Losing the ability to form coherent thoughts made it harder to mull over her failures.

All in all the way to death was progressing quite pleasantly, if you discounted the dreams.

Sometimes when Shepard had a clearer moment, she realized what was happening with her, but even then she lacked the energy and motivation, to do anything to save herself.

When day slowly turned into night again, there almost were no clear moments anymore.

The Spectre spent her time dreaming about meeting Liara again in the next world.

X

X

* * *

><p><em><strong>X<strong>_

_**X  
><strong>_

_**Author's rambling:**_

_**Okay, this is not going to be a dark fic, I'm trying to give the ending a more positive twist, but still stay in canon, or as close as possible.**_

_**I think to explain the Normandy's escape as a dream is the only way this scene makes any sense at all.**_

_**Anyway, there are going to be greener pastures, it's just going to take a while to reach them.**_

_**There will probably be two more chapters of similar size. If I continue writing in this speed, I might be finished tomorrow evening and then post the second chapter, with the third following sometime on monday.**_

_**One last thing. I really don't get enough reviews. I know a lot of people read my stories, but I get almost no reviews. That pisses me off and it takes away my motivation, when I see how many reviews writers get that are really below my skill level.**_

_**I may be no new Thomas Mann, but I can churn out some decent fan fics.**_

_**So please if you read this story and enjoy it, or have something you really feel fell short, write a short review, let me know and keep my motivation up. It's great to see people add me and my stories to favourites or alert, but it is even better to actually read what you liked or didn't like so much.**_

_**I have ideas for at least two more Mass Effect stories and many more Dragon Age stories, so if you keep up my motivation with reviews, I can definitely work faster on those.**_

_**X  
><strong>_


	2. Chapter 2

_**Author's note:**_

_**So, it seems like the protests are paying off, just leaves us to wait and see, whether the promised changes will suffice.  
><strong>_

_**In the end they won't have another chance, if they want their coming DLC's and games to sell at all.**_

_**It's still just a big disappointment, that a company like BW has been reduced to this by EA interference.**_

_**Who knows, if they could have made the endings we expected, if they didn't run into trouble and had to meet the publishing date.**_

_**But that's all spilled milk now. Let's just hope they do right by us.  
><strong>_

_**It took me a bit longer to update than planned… (yeah, right. A bit longer, like four days… you lazy sob). **_

_**My male Shep needed to see Tali again, poor Ash, she doesn't really stand a chance against that cutie and her sexy accent…**_

_**And I just had to play a bit more, wanted to save Kelly with another character and since you can actually have her as an LI, I thought I'd try this. **_

_**Just one more of the instances that show what a fantastic game this is, up until the end.**_

_**I don't like this chapter as much as the first one, but then I really liked that and that's rather unusual for me, if you know me :-)**_

As usual speech and thoughts are indicated by "" and thoughts additionally are written in _cursive._

Certain words may be written **bold**, that usually means that a strong emphasis is put on them.

Disclaimers: No, I do not own Mass Effect, Shepard or any other character appearing in the game, I only own my avatars and their characterization. Bioware does, we have to trust in them.

_**I don't know how many read my author's rambling at the end of the chaps, so I'm gonna repeat it here once more. **_

_**Please if you read this story and enjoy it, or have something you really feel fell short, write a short review, let me know and keep my motivation up. It's great to see people add me and my stories to favourites or alert, but it is even better to actually read what you liked or didn't liked so much.**_

_**I have ideas for at least two more Mass Effect stories and many more Dragon Age stories, so if you keep up my motivation with reviews, I can definitely work faster on those.**_

_**X  
>X<br>**_

* * *

><p><em><strong>X<br>X**_

_**Chapter Two:**_

_**X**_

_**X  
><strong>_

"Signal is getting stronger; we are coming closer to the source."

The violet Asari commando yelled into the passenger compartment of the Mako, to be heard above the roar of the engines, forcing their way through the rubble of London.

Then she turned to the Turian soldier beside her in the co-driver seat.

"So how are your people holding up so far?"

The lizard like Alien shrugged his shoulders in a very human like fashion.

"I'd say, quite well so far. Our ships of war are provisioned for about six earth months. Since we lost so many soldiers on earth, the rations will probably hold one or two months longer.

The chemists and biologists in the Quarian life ships are sure they will be able to create food enough for us and their own people."

The soldier growled quietly.

"The real problem are the Krogans, they need so much food, that their stores will run dry very soon. What's left of earth's government is going through their colony data to find a world in this sector, where the Krogans will be able to sustain themselves. Because, the situation as it is now, it will be hard enough to feed your people and the surviving humans."

The Asari nodded, swore a moment, when she didn't manage to avoid a larger piece of debris and replied.

"At least we've still got the regular FTL drives, that gives us a few options. And the Life ships, since many of their civilians stayed on Rannoch, they have the capability to produce more than the Quarians need for themselves. "

After a moment she continued.

"You said what's left off, so what** is** left of Earth's government?"

"Mainly Admiral Hackett; there are a few surviving local politicians in some of their countries. A lot of them have been indoctrinated, so we don't know if or when they'll be able to work again."  
>"I wouldn't want to change places with him. All of us are riding him pretty hard with our demands and look around at this hellhole here; more than 90 % of earth cities look like that. Estimated 70-80% of the population dead, that's more than on Thessia."<p>

The Turian scratched his chin with one of his thick-hided fingers.

"They had a lot more time here. At least the countryside hasn't been hit as hard and with so many dead, there's room for all the ship crews to settle, when we are rebuilding.

"That is a fairly rational way to look at it, and a rather cold one."

"It's the truth. It will be hard enough to restore enough civilization here that we all will be able to live here."

The Asari sighed.

"Yes, and meanwhile the people on Palaven and Thessia have to survive without the help of our fleets."

"I just hope the higher ups are making plans to get us all home. I don't plan to stay here the rest of my life."

The commando laughed drily.

"Imagine we'd have to stay here, for as long as I live. I'm not even 300 years old."

Both soldiers laughed and for a while after that it was quiet in the cockpit.

Then another Turian forced his way into the connection to the passenger compartment. He was covered in burn marks and his right arm ended in a bandaged stump at his elbow.

"We still got the signal?"

The Turian soldier turned halfway around to face him.

"Yes, sir. And we're getting closer."  
>He checked one of the displays.<p>

"If we can keep this monstrosity at this speed, we will be there in 10-15 minutes."

"Alright, just be careful, we have no idea what we'll find."

The officer returned to his seat and the Turian laughed once more.

"We don't know what we'll find? What does he think we'll find? It's an alliance beacon and the reapers and all their creatures are dead."

The Asari shuddered.

"Yes, it's disgusting how their carcasses are sprawled all over the town."

"There's nothing we can do. We have too few resources to waste too much of them cleaning the streets. There are almost no factories and power plants left, except those the Reapers converted, so we have to conserve ammunitions and energy."

The Asari nodded tiredly.

"I know, I know. Of course the first thing to do is make sure to find a place for the surviving population to live and provide for them. I just hope they'll get around to burning the whole lot before what's still organic in them rots away."

They drove quietly for a while, then the Turian called over his shoulder.

"ETA in five minutes, Sir."

An affirmative reply sounded back into the cockpit.

"You think we'll find anything? Anything alive I mean?"

The Asari shook her head.

"The more time goes by, the less chance there is for that. It's been days now. Anyone who has communications will already have reported in. Anyone fit enough will have made his way to one of the camps by now.

Wounded will be dead, people who can't get out of their wrecks, might have run out of water, died from radiation leaks. There's a lot of ways to die here."

"I just think it's funny that we've got two VIP's with us now, just to check on one lousy Alliance signal."

"Whatever floats their boat, as the humans are saying."

"I'm not sure I understand that."

"Wait, I'll explain it to you. A boat is…"

X

It didn't take much longer than the estimated five minutes until they reached their destination.

The Turian entered the passenger compartment, to inform their superiors, only to find that they had already opened the hatch and left the vehicle.

The Turian officer turned around and glanced back into the Mako.

"One of you should stay in the cockpit to keep the weapons ready.

The other one prepares the equipment, while we take a look around."

The soldier eyes flickered nervously for a moment. He looked at the officer's stump and stuttered.

"D-do you think that. I mean I… Shouldn't I acc…"

He stopped abruptly, as he noticed the officers pale eyes focus on him.

"Don't tell me you think I can't take care of myself?"  
>The soldier, coughed to clear his throat.<p>

"N-no, sir. No. Of course not."

"Good."

The other Turian turned around and joined his companion, who had already left to start searching for the signal, using her Omni tool as a scanner.

X

The scenario was the same as everywhere in London. Ruins of buildings, the streets littered with bodies and wrecks of all kinds of vehicles. Everything covered by the sickly sweet smell of burned flesh and rotting remains.

The Turian spotted his female companion, halfway up a small hill of debris that was formed by the broken down façade of a building.

As a result of this you could see into everything that remained of the rest of the building.

"Liara, wait! Don't run off alone."

The Asari shot a glance over her shoulder at him.

"I can't, Garrus. We've got to hurry; we need to check five more beacons today."

The Turian ex-Cop hurried to catch up on the scientist.

"You can't overexert yourself; you are still weak from too much use of your biotics."

Liara stopped, letting out a frustrated little scream.

She crossed her arms before her breasts and gazed impatiently at her friend.

The maiden's beautiful face was pale, she had deep, large shadows under her blue eyes, but she still appeared to be brimming with energy.

Garrus reached the top of the little debris hill, where the Asari waited.

His hand rubbed her shoulder reassuringly.

"I understand. If she's alive anywhere around London, we'll find her."

After a small pause he continued.

"I just don't want you to push yourself too much; it won't help Shepard if you are too weak to search for her.

And Liara, don't get your hopes up to high. We've no indication, that she even managed to leave the citadel at all and there's nothing left alive up there, but a few keepers."

The Asari's brave façade crumbled at this and tears started to run down her face.

Garrus shifted around uncomfortably. He knew some females were prone to strong emotional displays, but he was not good in dealing with this.

Taking a cue from what he thought Shepard would do, he put his arm around the Asari's shoulders and hugged her.

Wishing inside that Tali was here with them.

She and Korris had to deal with the other three Quarian admirals though, who since they found themselves in an unusually strong position where increasingly difficult to handle.

Liara buried her face in his chest, her hands clinging to the wide collar of his armour.

The Turian let her cry, murmuring what he thought of as comforting words to her and padding her head from time to time.

Liara didn't cry for long, there was no time for that. Not more than two or three minutes had passed, when she pushed herself away from garrus, sniffed and wiped her eyes, with one of her lab coat's arms.

"Thanks Garrus, I'm sorry for breaking down like that."

"Are you kidding me, T'Soni? I want to cry myself because of her and I'm not her partner."

The Asari gave him a little smile and nodded.

"Okay, and thanks again."

She straightened herself up and smoothed out her coat.

All professional again, she asked.

"Shall we continue then? The signal is coming from somewhere inside this ruin."

"Lead on, T'soni."

"Garrus Vakarian, ever the Gentleman."

"You must've misplaced me with some other Garrus Vakarian."

He watched her, as she struggled up the hill.

He was worried, all of them were. Liara didn't break down completely so far, but she was on edge like never before. The Maiden was going from heavily depressed to highs of optimism and exploding in anger over the smallest things. They had only been able to get her to sleep, by forcing medication on her. When the time came that Liara realized there was no hope left to find Shepard alive…

Garrus shuddered, he didn't want to think about that.

X

Going was treacherous in what was left of this Skyscraper.

Dark, dirty corridors, intercepted with stretches where only small remnants of the walls were left.

There were walls that fell against one another, creating almost impassable piles of debris.

You couldn't walk more than a few metres, without finding a cadaver, mostly human, but also more than enough reaper creatures.

The two friends carefully navigated through the Debris, now and then ducking down behind cover, when they heard noises. Sometimes even going so far as to draw their guns.

Intellectually they both knew that every single creature of Reaper design had died when the Impulse raced through the Relay Network, but months lived racing from battle to battle left them on high level alert.

"It's clear that the signal is coming from one of the higher floors. We should just skip those between and search straight for a way to the right floor."

That was Liara's opinion, when they had finished a sweep of the ground floor.

"The terrain up there is bound to be treacherous, Liara. There can't be much left of those higher floors. If we don't move careful we might bring part of it down and whoever or whatever is up there will be buried along with us."  
>The eyes of the prothean expert narrowed to little slits in anger.<p>

"Garrus, my barriers protected us from Harbinger's attack and you think I can't stabilize a few metres of concrete?"

"Normally, I wouldn't even mention this T'soni, but it was your saving us, which led to more than one ruptured blood vessel in your brain. You almost died on me once already. Shepard will rip me to pieces, when she returns and I let you hurt yourself."

The anger in the Asari's eyes dissipated as fast as it had appeared and she nodded in resignation.

"Then let's be careful, but we still have to move fast."

They moved as fast as possible, but it was still much too slow for Liara. It took them almost ten minutes to reach the third floor.

This was almost the end of the building. Only small parts of the next floor were left, and even here there were gaping holes making it very hard to traverse the floor.

Checking her Omni tool, an excited Liara turned to the one-armed Turian.

"Garrus! Human life signs! They are weak but they are here."

The Asari checked the omni tool once again and sprinted forward, her biotics hurling her over the first metre wide hole.

Garrus cursed under his breath. There was no stopping her now.

He just hoped the foolish Asari didn't hurt herself, while he searched for a way to reach her.

Liara pushed herself forward with her biotics, blue energy whirling around her like a storm cloud.

She ran at full throttle, sweeping aside whatever blocked her path, clearing every hole she encountered by levitating across it.

Behind her whole sections of what was left of the walls tumbled down, but she didn't care.

She just wanted, no needed to reach the person generating the life signs.

She stopped for a moment.

"_Be calm, be steady Liara. Let your intellect make your decisions not your feelings."_

She had no right to endanger her friend, just because she couldn't restrain herself anymore.

"Garrus! Stay back! Don't follow me. I'll find a way out and take whoever is here with me, but I can't worry about your safety.

Just get out and ready the stretcher!"

The Turian waved his arm at her to signal he had heard her, before he turned away and sprinted down the debris pile they' d used to get up here.

He knew that when the young scientist made a decision she stuck to it, no matter what, just like when she had spent more than 2 years hunting down the previous Shadow Broker to get revenge.

Even before Garrus was finished turning around, Liara already was on her way again.

The blood rushed behind her temples, her heart beat like an old terran twelve-cylinder petrol burning car. She didn't even understand it, this was the fourth beacon they had followed, and there were more to check, but somehow this one felt important, this one felt urgent.

It was foolish to hope, foolish to think that Shepard had survived, but she couldn't help it. Her beautiful features turned into a mask of steely concentration.

Debris blocked the passage in front of her; she brought her arms together before her, and then yanked them apart.

The debris followed the movement and parted like the red sea. A path was cleared and the Asari practically flew through it, actually dragging a tail of biotic energy behind her.

Seconds later a part of the floor under her feet started to crumble and she let her biotic energy pour into the concrete, stabilising it with her power, as long as she was still on it.

When she reached more stable ground, she let go and the whole floor partition behind her fell down to the next floor in a resounding crash, releasing a thick cloud of dust.

Liara had no time to spare to look behind her; she was already skidding around a corner, pushing herself forward even more, before she had to come to a halt abruptly. She just managed to stop herself, before slamming into the next obstacle on her way.

This corridor was also totally blocked, but she was too close to the beacon to risk using as much force as before. She couldn't risk that all came crashing down around the person she wanted to save.

Puffing frustrated, Liara held her arms akimbo and tried to calm her hectic breathing.

It was so hard to keep her head, because all she could see was Rain's face before her eyes and her name sounded within her skull like it was the only thing that mattered.

Coming to a decision Liara called upon her biotics again and pushed herself of the ground. Standing perfectly still, she levitated away from the corridor, over a part where nothing of this floor remained and headed straight across the rest of the distance to her target, that was located in a corner of the building, where debris of this and a few more higher floors had formed a maze of small passages, instable openings and risky surfaces.

The Maiden landed softly on her feet and began to cautiously navigate her way through the piles of debris. Here lifting a piece and carefully levitating it aside, there stabilising a few pieces, so that she could crawl through them.

Her coat shredded itself on sharp edges; she took a few scratches in her face, from small rubble falling down. Dark, thick dust covered her and made her cough violently until she put her breathing mask on, but she steadily closed in on the beacon and finally, after setting one last slab of concrete against the somewhat sturdier leftovers of a wall, she could make out the dark shape of a human sized body in the diminishing twilight formed by the dust in the air and the dwindling light of dusk.

The prothean expert took the flashlight she usually attached to her weapons out of one of her coats inner pockets, activated it, directed it at the body and dropped it in the same instant.

She would have recognized her instantly in a crowd of hundreds.

Her straight, silken, blonde hair, cut so that it framed her beautiful face, except for a few strands that always seemed to fall before her right eye, hair that just begged to be gently swept back behind her ear and to use this opportunity to caress her cheeks.

The sharp, straight nose, which was just a little bit too long to be called beautiful, the high, accentuated cheekbones, the surprisingly strong chin and the skin coloured like coffee with a lot of cream added.

Rain Shepard was lying there, lying there amidst the rubble of a London skyscraper, instead of somewhere in the remains of the Citadel.

Liara practically jumped forward and dropped to her knees besides her love.

"Rain!"

A scream, pairing joy with surprise and not just an ounce of fear.

"Rain! Rain! Talk to me! Answer me are you alright? No of course you are not alright, but are you alive?"

"_Liara, you fool. Stop screaming and start to help her."_

She scolded herself. Her Omni tool flickered into life to get a reading of Shepard's condition.

Her eyes ran over the Spectre's face and body, taking the wounds and injuries into account, almost at the same time they were reported on her omni tool.

Broken ribs, concussions, multiple spall fractures in both legs, damaged inner organs, several fissure fractures in the skull. Massive blood loss, massive dehydration, life signs unstable. Alerts flared up on the omni tools readout screen.

A choked noise escaped Liara's throats and she felt tears well up.

"Oh Shepard." She whispered "Shepard."

She shook her head and forced the tears to stop. That wouldn't help anybody. There was time to cry later, when everything was done to help the marine.

She ordered the omni tool to administer the whole Medigel supply to the Spectre and hurriedly called Garrus.

"Garrus? I found her! I really found her and she's alive! But barely, she is in a terrible condition. Let the others ready the medical equipment and get to the house with the stretcher."

The Turian's reply came so hurried that he stumbled over his words for a moment before he could continue in an intelligible way.

"…Damn. Sorry about that. How are you gonna get her down to us? There's no way we can get the stretcher to her…. Are you sure it's really her and not some other blonde human? They all look the same."

"Garrus, do you think I wouldn't recognize Shepard? Really?"

He coughed to clear his throat.

"Erm… oh, uhh. No, course not. It's just that, that this is really unbelievable. For Shepard to be alive, it's a miracle."

She answered after a short break.

"It is, but if we don't hurry to get her treatment, it might be a very short -lived miracle. So, I suggest you contact Chakwas and Joker to get everything ready for a patient in critical condition, to be transported to one of the Asari dreadnoughts."

That was the plan for everyone whose injuries surpassed what the remaining military and civilian hospitals on earth couldn't handle,

The Dreadnoughts with their giant crews and enough room had by far the best infirmaries in the whole fleet and Asari and human physiology was just close enough that you could use a lot of the same equipment to treat both species.

The next best choice would have been the Quarian hospital ships, but like so much else, medical supplies had always been rather short on board those ships and were already severely depleted from the war on Rannoch, when the Fleet set course to the Sol System.

X

Liara checked Shepard for anything that could make moving her impossible or harder, she had already done so with her Omni Tool, but wanted to see it with her own eyes to be sure.

She was so concentrated on this, that she yelped in surprise when she felt something fleetingly touching her face.

Instinctively she tried to wipe away whatever it was; only to find it were Shepard's fingers. So she caught the Spectre's hand with both of hers and led the fingers to her mouth to gently kiss them, not caring for the grime, blood and dirt they were covered in.

The tears, instantly streaming down her face made it hard to see Shepard clearly, but the face which so clearly showed the ordeal through which the woman had gone, sported Rain's usual smile, that just couldn't look anything else but cocky.

"'lo Liara."

The Spectre's voice was nothing more than a weak throaty whisper, but Liara had no trouble understanding it.

"Hello Commander Shepard."

"Didn't think… angels would be covered… in (cough, cough)… dust and dirt, with cuts… on their faces and… and are you really… supposed to be blue?"

Liara couldn't help but smile through the tears.

"They picked me especially for you, Shepard."

"Figures, I… have a thing for… barely grown-up Asari."

Liara couldn't answer anymore. She kissed Rain's fingers again and let go of them with her left hand, to gently stroke her hair lovingly.

"I…'m sorry… that you… had to die… as well, but… I'm (cough, cough) I'm glad… you… are here."

With that, the Commander's last strength was spent and her head lolled to the side, her fingers going slack in the Maiden's hand.

The Asari grasped Shepard's hand with a stronger grip, pressing her brow against it, her left unintentionally clutching at what was left of Shepard's N7 armour chest plating.

"Keep on fighting, Shepard. I know you can do it. You promised. Remember that you promised me to always come back to me, when we'd beaten the Shadow Broker. You never break a promise. You never…"

Her voice failed her and only a stifled, little sigh escaped her throat.

It was no use anyway. Talking wasn't going to help Shepard.

She stood up again and dusted down her coat, before she called on her biotics.

The blue energy field covered Shepard's body and slowly lifted the human off the floor, keeping the body steady.

Liara's brow furrowed as she used her biotic power to levitate herself as well and slowly sent the two of them to the edge of the building.

It wasn't far from here to the ground, because debris and rubble were piling up to about two metres below them.

Since there was no way to get the stretcher there, as well, Liara simply ignored the mountain of waste and instead continued to slowly levitate them in Garrus direction.

It didn't take long to reach the Turian, maybe two or three minutes had passed, when the Asari gently lowered Shepard onto the readied stretcher beside Garrus.

Then she landed herself and almost fell to the ground, as the strain of using her already overexerted powers hit her.

Garrus hastily caught her around the hips with his arm and barked.

"T'soni, you idiot. I told you not to overdo it with your biotics. Do you really want another aneurysm so badly?"

Liara needed a moment to get herself together again, but then she shook his arm off and hissed back.

"There was no other way, Vakarian. I was right to hurry; she might be already dead if I had not applied the medigel."

She wiped the sweat of her brow, leaving a dark smear, before she continued in a more reconciliatory tone.

"I'm sorry, Garrus, from the moment we entered that ruin, I knew I had to hurry. I couldn't… Please, let's not argue and just get her to the Normandy."

The Turian stared at her, anger shining from his eyes. His body tense, poised forward as if he was about to attack her, his hand already drawing closer to his gun.

Then he blinked and shook his head and took a step back.

He brought his hand to his eyes and covered them for a moment and then applied soft pressure on his eyeballs.

When he talked again, he spoke slow, tired and controlled.

"We are all… tired, frustrated, shocked and ten other things. I'm sorry, I do understand you. She's your partner, but she's… she's my best friend and… and since you… she would have wanted me to… you know.

He looked at her somewhat apologetically, begging for understanding.

Liara returned his look, her brilliant eyes growing warmer; she smiled at him and simply nodded.

Taking control of the stretcher she began to carefully steer it towards the waiting Mako.

Garrus remained for a moment longer. Letting his eyes wander around the junction where they had parked the vehicle.

Pictures of Palaven rose before his eyes, overlapping with what lay before him here.

Would he ever be able to see any of the home planets of the council species restored to their old glory? How long would it take to get back everything that they had lost?

For a moment he thought of Edi and the Geth.

He hadn't exactly grown warm with the robots, he didn't think anyone on board the Normandy but Shepard, Liara and maybe Doctor Chakwas were as forgiving.

It was hard to see something or rather someone whose race had tried to kill you, as more than an ally out of necessity. That much the Turian already knew from working with humans.

But Legion had at least shown him that the Geth were more than just mindless killing automatons.

And now their whole species was gone, along with the peculiar and funny AI of the Normandy.

Garrus shook his head again. It was all just too much too take in.

Every sudden movement, every loud sound made him want to lunge for cover and draw his gun. His mind might know that the war with the reapers was over, but his body sure didn't.

And his missing arm was a damn pain in the butt. It was itching like you wouldn't believe it and there wasn't even something to scratch.

He shrugged and started to follow Liara.

As long as it was just an arm, which could be replaced, he was much better off than most of the Hammer soldiers, who were burned all crispy-crunchy.

When he arrived at the Mako and entered the small passenger compartment, Liara was already in the process of securing the stretcher.

Finishing that task, she then started to get some fluids into Shepard. Mostly it was just saline solution, but enriched with necessary dietary minerals and some vitamins.

Garrus sat down beside the stretcher and looked at Shepard's hollow cheeks; the Commander's complexion under her naturally dark skin looked sick and unhealthy.

He extended his hand and rested it on Shepard's brow. Turians with their thicker skin didn't have as much sensation in their fingertips as humans did, but even so he was sure that Shepard's temperature was much higher than normal.

He looked up and his eyes met the Asari's.

Liara's brow was furrowed in concern. Her eyes shimmered wet again.

"She's burning up, Garrus. Her temperature is higher than 43° degrees Celsius. A regular human would probably be dead already.

She might only be still alive because of what the Lazarus project changed in her."

She let her head sink and leaned heavily on the stretcher.

Her small shoulders shook a little and now and then a small whimper escaped her.

Garrus felt very uncomfortable, he liked Liara, very much, so. She was a good friend, but he had always been closer to Shepard and Tali. Both women didn't seem as prone to crying as Liara did.

He'd only ever seen Tali cry twice (although seeing might be the wrong expression, as it of course had happened under her visor), once when she was charged with treason and they found the body of her father and once out of happiness, when her people reclaimed Rannoch.

He jumped to his feet, bumping his head against the Mako's low cabin ceiling and instantly started to curse when the pain hit.

Ignoring the pain he stuck his head into the cockpit and ordered the two soldiers to return to camp at top speed.

When he returned to his seat, he was glad that Liara seemed to have gotten her emotions under control once more.

She was wiping her eyes with a piece of cloth, which she then used to wipe the worst dirt and grime from her face.

She looked at him and he saw blank desperation in her face.

"It's not fair."

She whispered.

"It's not fair if I lose her, now that we really found her. She can't die.

Goddess, please don't let her die."

For a moment Garrus considered to tell her that she might as well pray to Javik, but decided not to. It surely would be what Tali called "insensitive."

"_Women."_

He thought.

"_They are trying to change you, the moment you let them get close to you."_

He weighed the options in his mind and found that what you gained was far more than what you lost and wisely decided to not pursue that line of thinking anymore in the future.

He definitely didn't want Tali to be pissed at him. No way, he'd rather face some Reapers again.

In the end he awkwardly put his hand on Liara's shoulder again and said.

"She's going to be fine. Nobody fights like Shepard. She's clung to life until now, she won't die on you."

The Asari sat herself beside Shepard's stretcher, so that she could keep the readings of the medical monitors in view and clung to Shepard's right arm as if it was her only life line.

"I hope you're right."

The drive back to their camp didn't take long.

Liara kept herself busy, checking Shepard's read-outs, replacing the IV-packs, and meticulously cleaning the Commander's arms and head from grim, grind and coagulated blood.

Then she removed as much of Shepard's N7 and Armax armour as was possible and started to dress the burns she could reach with anti-burn gel and synthskin-patches.

When she was finished with all of this, she returned to her place next to Shepard and held her hand again.

She rested her brow on it and Garrus could see that her lips were constantly forming unspoken words.

Turians weren't exactly talented when it came to lip reading, seeing how they practically had none themselves, but Garrus was fairly sure that the words Liara said over and over again were Shepard, Rain and Goddess and that she was once more praying.

The prothean expert had never seemed to be an especially religious person and to realize that her people practically followed beliefs similar to the often ridiculed Hanar didn't exactly lead to her becoming more fervent in her beliefs.

Yet it seemed definitely true, that you turned to your earliest beliefs when you lost your bearing and Garrus could just see the little Liara praying like that as a child in Benezia's home.

Suddenly the Asari Commando called from the cockpit.

"We've got an incoming Ship. It's the Normandy and they are hailing us. Your crazy pilot says he can pick us up about 0,5 klicks from here.

What should I answer?"

Garrus blinked.

"What do you think? The Commander's life is hanging by a thread, each minute counts."

"So I should tell him to rendezvous?"

"Of course you should tell him that and hurry the hell up."

Garrus wanted to catch Liara's gaze, but her eyes were glued to Shepard's face. So instead he spoke louder.

"You heard that, Liara?"

"Huh?"

"Did you hear the driver? Joker is picking us up. Must be any minute now."

It took a moment until understanding showed in the Maiden's eye.

She jumped to her feet and a biotic field flickered into existence around here. It quickly spread over Shepard's body, the stretcher and the medical equipment. Probably to cushion everything from the strong vibrations that were bound to come, considering the rough ride the Mako was.

The pilot's voice filled the Mako again.

"Activating thrusters… now… and we're off.

.

.

.Brace for landing in three. One. Two. Three."

With his usual grace, which was no grace at all, the Mako landed on the Normandy's hangar deck.

Liara extended her hand and the Mako's exit sprung open instantly. Seconds later the stretcher was on the ground and rolling towards the elevator.

The hangar was relatively dark, and empty apart from the badly damaged shuttle and Cortez workbench.

What had been left of the supplies stocked here, had already been sent to the newly established HQ in Heathrow, to be distributed and used from there.

Lieutenant Cortez immediately sprinted from his place at his work bench to meet them.

He grabbed a handle of the stretcher and helped to steer it through the narrow opening between the two consoles for ordering equipment and new Weapons.

A crew member opened the elevator doors for them and Cortez pushed the button for the Crew deck.

The elevator doors popped open but seconds later and they quickly hurried around the free standing elevator. Garrus eyes glided across the memorial board and the new names added, wishing desperately that no other name would have to be added.

Then the stretcher raced through the mess room passing crew members eager to see if their commander was really here, to return from death once more and some who were just sitting at one of the tables happy to get a short break from the double shifts they were al doing.

Dr. Chakwas opened the door to the sick bay.

"Hurry, Cortez, Liara! I've already prepped everything to keep her steady until we reach the dreadnought."

The stretcher disappeared behind the closing doors and moments after, most of the crew members pressed forward to occupy the sick bay's windows. They were eager to see what was happening, not because they lusted for sensations, but because more than everybody in the combined fleets these people knew the impossible deeds their commander had accomplished to make their victory possible.

They had seen what many saw as the epitome of soldier and officer, struggle with the pressure that was pushed on her, they had seen her falter, but not even once stop fighting, no matter what it cost her.

To ensure that nobody disturbed the Doctor, Garrus placed himself in front of the door, with legs apart and a menacing expression on his face.

Seconds later Liara's angry face appeared at one of the windows and the next moments the windows polarized, so that you couldn't see the insides of the sick bay anymore.

Some crew members muttered angrily, but after a while most went back to work. They trusted Doctor Chakwas that she gave her bets for their commander.

X

"Is it really her?"

"Yes Jeff, it's really her."

"Alright! I'm coming down to you."

"Jeff Moreau! You keep your brittle, bony ass on that damn chair and bring us to the Dreadnought "Athame's Grace" ASAP, or I'll rip you a new one."

Silence for a moment and then a very meek sounding Joker replied.

"Yes, mam... I mean Doctor Chakwas. I'll do just that."

"Thank you Jeff, you know we have to rely on you now."  
>Joker's voice turned even more sober.<p>

"Yeah, Doc. I know. And Doc?

"Yes, Jeff?"

"I never thought I'd hear this kind of language from you."

"You know we all care about her, Jeff. And every minute counts right now."  
>"That bad, huh?"<p>

"Very bad, Jeff. She's in a very bad shape indeed."

"Then I'll leave you to your job and go back to doing mine."

"I think that's a good idea."

Dr, Chakwas had continued to work on Commander Shepard, even as she spoke with Joker and now she activated the last part of an impressive array of medical equipment, tasked with keeping Commander Rain Shepard alive.

First she had to cut away the remains of the commander's armour, no easy task since part of the shock and heat absorbing fabric under the plating was burned into Shepard's skin.

Dressing all the wounds and burns took some time and she'd almost run out of her supply of anti-burn gel.

She couldn't do anything for the inner injuries; in fact she didn't dare to touch them without a proper surgical suite.

All she could do was pump Shepard full of every helpful medication, until the commander's body practically drowned in it. And hope that the life-supporting equipment managed to keep her alive until they reached the Asari ship.

She let out a loud sigh and placed her back against the examination table next to Shepard.

Her eyes wandered around the room. She had always felt the sick bays should be designed a little friendlier, but with the metal deck, the openly positioned steel gratings around the examination tables and the inner ceramic hull plating on the wall, it looked more like some kind of workstation, than a place to cure the sick and treat wounded.

Finally her eyes fell on Liara. The Asari hadn't let go of Shepard's hand for one moment, since she had placed the commander on the table.

She had commandeered one of the two chairs in the room and sat in it like a picture of misery.

Chakwas realized that Liara must have listened to her conversation with Joker, even though she appeared to be lost in thoughts.

Her eyes were wide open and pleaded for something to calm her distraught mind.

"I'm sorry, Doctor T'Soni. I didn't mean to worry you even more."

"It's Liara, Doctor, just Liara. I think we've known each other long enough. Is it… Is it really that bad?"

"Well, Doct… I mean Liara, you saw the read-outs yourself. Her whole system is under an unbelievable strain.

She's got third degree burns on 50% of her body. I'd imagine both from harbinger's attack and from whatever happened later on the Citadel.

She's running an infection and her fever is so high, that her brain normally would have to boil in her head. She's exhausted, like no one I've ever seen before. She's lost pints of blood; half her inner organs aren't working properly anymore or are bleeding. Her brainwaves are even more changed than before the first two prothean beacons; in fact they show signs similar to reaper indoctrination. And any injury as major as what happened to her legs shocks the whole system so much that…"

Chakwas noticed that every new problem made Liara visibly cringe and she decided to leave it at that.

"I don't think any of this or just two or three of those injuries would be a problem for the commander, but everything together… To be honest I'm sure she's only alive because of the nanites and nanobots used in the Lazarus Project.

The problem is that it seems those nano-machines are not working as they should, or maybe only parts of them are working at all.

I just don't know, I'm not going to lie to you, it is beyond me. I hope some of your Asari physicians know more about this stuff."

Liara only nodded quietly, too shocked by the bluntly delivered information.

It may have been hard, but Chakwas whole professional life was spent as part of the Alliance military, so she tended to be a bit more frank with patients and their families. Besides she didn't believe in giving people false hope.

The doctor regarded her patient once more.

Covered in injuries and bandages and without her uniform or armour, Shepard looked so small and young.

Unbelievable how this woman, was the same that head-butted Krogans, could hit an old euro coin from hundreds of metres distance with her Sniper rifle and lead the biggest fleet ever assembled in council space into battle.

"_I guess part of me always thought it was going to end this way. _

_We already lost her once, and no matter how skilled or lucky you are, you can only escape the grim reaper so often. Ugh! That's a word I probably shouldn't have used."_

Without intending to Chakwas had walked over to the commander

Her eyes studied the younger woman's face, searching for any sign what might be happening inside Shepard's mind right now.

Slowly she extended her arm and gently stroke Shepard's hair, an unusual gesture for her, but she couldn't help it.  
>All these young soldiers, she had seen in her life, on the operating table, in her care, in burn or trauma wards.<p>

It was the fate of a military physician to continue living, while those she was responsible for died in battle.

"_Please Commander, don't give up. Just win one more fight so that we don't lose you. We've lost so much already._

_You probably still don't know how much depends on you. What a symbol you've become for humanity. We've lost our homes, most of our people; many of us have lost hope._

_We still need you Shepard, not just your crew and friends, no humanity needs you. I know we demand too much, but there's nobody else left to fill your place. Don't give up."_

X  
>X<p>

"Garrus, I've dozens of people here, asking me if it's true.

What am I supposed to tell them?"  
>"Depends on who is asking."<p>

"Huh?"

"Joker, if it's Hackett you should probably tell him, that we found Shepard alive, but that she's in a terrible condition. Doctor Chakwas just told me it's hanging by a thread. The rest you can just ignore for all I care. You should probably concentrate on getting us to this Dreadnought, instead of answering all those calls."

"Great Idea, it just so happens that there's no one else left to take those calls, since Traynor has been added to Hackett's staff and since EDI is gone."

Garrus winced, it still hadn't sunk in that EDI was really gone. It had to be so much harder for Joker.

"Just patch them through to me. I'll handle it."

"Thanks, I'll do just that, Scarface."

"I told you not to call me that, Joker."

"Would Scaleface really be so much better?"

"Neither of those names is acceptable."  
>"Spoilsport, you are no fun."<br>"Joker, I'm Ex-C-Sec, what do you think how often I've heard that?"  
>"Yeah, yeah. Just shut up and let me fly."<p>

Garrus wondered how Joker managed to keep up his usual persona, after what had happened during the last few days.

He couldn't be so unfazed by losing EDI and the others. The ex-cop was just happy that it wasn't his job to take care of this stuff.

"Garrus, is it really true? Is she alive?"  
>A sweet voice with that unmistakable, sexy Quarian accent, was the first he heard through his comm.<p>

"Good day to you Admiral vas Normandy, how good it is to hear from you. I'm doing fine thanks for asking, it's just that my bunk is very cold at night."

For a moment there was only silence.

"Keelah selai! Garrus, you boshtet! I've no time to care for your inflated ego. If you ever want to touch me again, you tell me this instant if Shepard really is alive."

Shit, definitely not the best time to play neglected boyfriend. She sounded really angry.

"Sorry, Tali, I just miss you. Yes, Liara and I, we found Shepard and she was still alive. I'm sorry Tali, but I don't know how… Dr, Chakwas says it's touch and go. She's got so many injuries; you could fill a book with them.

She was awake for a moment, after Liara pumped her full of medi-gel, but she believed she was dead and that Liara was as well."

When there came no replay and all he could hear was the noise of Tali's breathing apparatus he asked.

"Tali, you still there?"

"Of course I'm still here. I'm just… trying to… deal with this…

Garrus, I'm coming over."

"Ah, I thought Hackett wanted you to get your colleagues under control."

"I don't care what Hackett wants, right now. I want to see Shepard, especially if… especially if it might be the last time. I'm taking a shuttle to the Normandy right now."

Tali could really be stubborn, not that he didn't understand it.

"Then you better head straight to the Asari Dreadnought "Athame's Grace." We're taking Shepard there, because their infirmary has the equipment needed to treat her."

"Then I'll do just that. And Garrus?"

"Yes?"

"I miss you too."

Garrus didn't have much time to enjoy his suddenly better mood, before it took a turn to worse again.

"Officer Vakarian? Officer Vakarian, can you please give our viewers a statement regarding Commander Shepard's condition?"

"Allers? Are you kidding me?"

The obnoxious reporter brat flashed her bubble gum smile.

"Our viewers need to know if Commander Shepard is going to live or die."

Garrus growled dangerously.

"Allers, you better get your camera and yourself out of my field of vision, before I'll do something you are going to regret.."

Even the war correspondent could sense she was treading dangerous territory.

" Commander Shepard has always supported…"

Garrus took his time to ostentatiously draw his pistol and check whether there was a thermo mag in it or not.

"Since Commander Shepard isn't able to give you an interview now and I'm not going to, why don't you and your readers go and shove it?"

Allers paled visibly.

"I-I-I'm going, I'm going. No need to threaten me, if you don't care to inform the population about what's happening with one of our greatest heroes…"

"Allers, our planets are burning, our populations dying, the portals are gone and every single fleet in the galaxy is stranded here in earth's local cluster. We've lost a whole species and about 2/3 of our fleets and 80 % of the ground troops. Do you really think anybody will let you use one of our few precious quantum entangler connections to send people your program, people who are only interested in finding the surviving members of their families, a shelter and something to eat?  
>No one is going to waste precious resources on that."<p>

"I-I… All I ever did was trying to help Commander Shepard with her task. You're going to be sorry for treating me this way."

"I'm practically shaking in my boots here.

You tell yourself that you only want to help. To me you vultures are all the same, whether it's you or al-Jilani."

Without another word, the newshound ran off, with a dark read face and puffed up cheeks,

"Bitch!"

Was all Garrus thought.

"EDI, patch me through to all flagsh… damn. Damn."

The joy he had felt over telling Allers to piss off, was gone instantly.

"It's no use, someone has to inform everybody, might as well be me."

Garrus aimed himself at LT Cortez, who was still sitting at one of the plain mess tables with a cup of coffee in front of him, which had gone cold untouched.

His eyes never left the darkened sick bay windows.

"Cortez, will you do me and the commander a favour?"

The shuttle pilot looked at him with eyes that shimmered a bit wet.

"Everything I can, Sir."

"Okay, you watch the sick bay and let no one pester Doctor Chakwas and Liara, while they take care of Shepard and I'm going to inform the fleet."

Cortez jumped to his feet and almost saluted.  
>"Of course, Sir."<p>

Garrus nodded and directed his steps toward the elevator, he sighed, this was definitely not something he was going to enjoy doing.

Before he reached it, the elevator opened and spit out Gabriela Daniels.

When she saw him, the dark-haired woman's eyes lightened up a bit and her worried expression lessened.  
>"G-garrus, what a lucky coincidence it is that I'm bumping into you."<p>

"Why's that Miss Daniels?"

The frown on the engineers face returned.

"We.. I mean the others sent me… That is to say, we would like to know how the Commander is doing."

Garrus sighed inwardly, but Shepard had always had a good connection with the engineers, he and Tali playing many a night's poker with them.

Tali saw the Normandy engine crew as friends, so he should properly do so as well.

"You can tell Adams and Donnelly that her condition is critical. We'll have to see how it goes."

The engineers face darkened even more, clearly she had hoped for better news-

"All we can do is hope Miss Daniels, and remember that Shepard's a fighter. She's probably to stubborn to die."

Daniels nodded and excused herself, but instead of returning to the lift, she continued towards the ship's mess.

Garrus looked at her departing back for a moment until he continued on to the lift.

He entered the cabin and punched the button for the CIC, then he waited until the door shut before he smashed his fist against the cabin's wall and rested his forehead against the cold metal.

His eyes moistened up.

"Damn it, Shepard. I'd rather have my drinks with you here, than in that bar in heaven. I don't want to lose the best friend I'll ever have."

X  
>X<p>

* * *

><p><strong>X<strong>  
><strong>X<strong>

**Author's ramblings:**

**That's it for chapter 2, as I said I try to keep this within canon, but in the end it has to be something I can accept for myself, that's why I chose and will choose a more positive interpretation than most do, especially in case of the Mass relays' explosions.**

**REVIEW, REVIEW, REVIEW!**


End file.
